


Bulletproof Glass

by platonicharmonics



Series: We Two Boys Together Clinging [4]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Aftercare, Arthritic Hosea Matthews, Asthmatic Hosea Matthews, Bottom Hosea Matthews, Brief Feminization Kink, Communication, Creampie kink, Demiromantic Dutch van der Linde, Demisexual Hosea Matthews, Dom Dutch van der Linde, Dom/sub, Dutch and Hosea are Switches, Enthusiastic Consent, Erectile Dysfunction, Hosea Matthews Has Fibromyalgia, Hosea Matthews has Chronic Pain, Light Choking, M/M, Makeup Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Porn With Plot, Pre-Video Game: Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), Protective Dutch Van Der Linde, Rough Sex, Safe Sane and Consensual, Spanking, Top Dutch van der Linde, but in this specific instance, sub Hosea Matthews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:02:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28038867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonicharmonics/pseuds/platonicharmonics
Summary: On a beautiful spring day, suffocating under the smothering weight of Dutch's fussing after a long, dark Montanan winter that almost took his life, Hosea decides to singlehandedly hunt a massive, murderous boar.Dutch refuses to allow it.Hosea refuses to be contained until he'sforcedto be.
Relationships: Hosea Matthews/Dutch van der Linde
Series: We Two Boys Together Clinging [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898260
Comments: 16
Kudos: 48





	Bulletproof Glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [julianequinox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/julianequinox/gifts).



> This fic is dedicated to the wonderful and delightful Julian and their lovely snake Dutch. They nudged me into writing this idea that I've been sitting on for a while, and I can't think of any better drive to write out a concept I've been wanting to explore than to hope it can make a friend who's been having a rough time smile. I hope you enjoy this, Julian, and I hope the days ahead treat you and Dutch with kindness! ♥
> 
>  **Content Warning** for brief allusions to **past self-harm** and **alcoholism** , as well as, uh... **extreme harm to animals.**

**_Montana, 1898_ **

The sight of the Callander brothers barreling towards camp at full speed on their horses like the Devil himself was nipping at their heels was a common enough sight.

Mac being held against Davey Callander’s front in the saddle with blood running down half of his face, however, was cause for concern.

 _“Miss Grimshaw! Swanson!”_ Hosea bellowed immediately as soon as he spotted the blood on Mac’s head as they appeared in the treeline surrounding their camp, side-stepping out of the way as Davey’s buckskin mustang, Mustard, skidded to a halt in a huge plume of dirt, panting and foaming at the mouth. Sure enough, Miss Grimshaw, Swanson, and Dutch all came running from further in camp as Hosea rushed up to the mare’s side, reaching up for Mac and yelling “What the hell happened, boy?!”

Davey looked down at Hosea, wall-eyed, panting for breath as much as his horse as he started gingerly moving Mac into Hosea’s outstretched arms. “W- We were out to rob that stagecoach goin’ cross the border and we were laying up in the woods watching the road when this huge fuckin’ boar came outta nowhere-” Davey was just unhooking Mac’s leg from over the saddle horn to let the man drop into Hosea’s hold when Dutch swept in and shoved Hosea aside “-and it just charged and screamed an’ I panicked and ran-” Dutch easily caught Mac instead and ducked his head under the man’s arm to support him, Swanson coming up to do the same on his other side as Hosea balked at them both, baring his teeth as they rushed away “-and Mac tried to scare the hog away but it just swiped him into a tree a-a-and-!”

“That’s enough now,” Miss Grimshaw snapped, spinning on her heel to head for the medical supplies. “Hosea, see to Davey and take care of him, please!”

“I ain’t his mother,” Hosea snipped sharply. He deflated quickly once his eyes laid on Davey’s ashen face, the boy’s eyes seeming a million miles away as he stared in the direction his twin had gone. Hosea sighed and said, “Davey?” After he got no response, he reached up and grabbed the boy’s elbow, giving it a firm squeeze. “Davey, you all right?”

“Huh?” Davey asked absently, blinking down at him again. “Oh! Uh. What?”

Hosea gently patted him on the shoulder. “Are you _hurt,_ Davey?”

Davey shook his head. “N- No. I don’t think so. Can I go to Mac?”

“In a little bit,” Hosea said gently, kindly squeezing Davey’s knee. “In the meantime, poor Mustard here needs cooling off. You need to take care of her now.”

Davey blinked and nodded, taking a deep breath. Hosea waved away all the rest of the lingering eyes of the prying camp around them as Davey dismounted and took Mustard’s reins, leading her towards the hitching posts. Hosea followed him in step.

“Where was this boar?” he asked, tapping his knuckles on Davey’s bicep as they walked.

Davey scrubbed his hand over his face. “We were up in, uh- Pecking Ridge, about twelve miles down the Smithwood Trail, near the intersection.” 

“Did you two do anything to provoke it? Was it a mother with pigs?”

Davey tied the reins to a post and numbly started setting to work taking the tack off of Mustard. “N-No, or- I don’t think so. I think he was a, er- a feller. He was the size of a goddamn _Shire,_ I swear on my mother.”

After Davey set the tack on the rail to dry and exchanged the mare’s bridle for her halter, Hosea clapped him on the back of his neck and warmly said “Walk her around for about ten minutes, then let her drink and give her a sponge bath till the water’s not hot, then walk her for another ten. _Then_ you can go see your brother. As for me, I’m gonna go hunt that boar, okay?”

“Okay,” Davey said faintly with a little nod, grabbing Mustard’s lead rope and walking away. 

"And Davey?"

Davey stopped and looked over his shoulder, his eyes focusing a little. "Yeah?"

Hosea held his gaze for a few seconds before saying, "Mac's gonna be okay, son."

Davey visibly relaxed - not fully, but he took another deep breath and, on the exhale, looked present. "Thanks, Hosea."

Hosea turned to walk away and only answered, "Scoot."

Hosea set about his own work, then, approaching Silver Dollar where the old stallion was grazing and whistling, making his old friend prick his ears up and look at him attentively before dutifully walking towards him. Hosea greeted him with a warm, low cooing noise and a carrot from his pocket, then clicked at Silver to follow him to the saddle-stand where his tack rested. It was an easy enough task to slip the bit into Silver Dollar’s mouth once the Turkoman swallowed the last of the carrot mush and adjust it to fit snugly around his head, though the saddle-pad and saddle were a bit more strenuous. Hosea stared at where the massive bulk of heavy leather sat on the wood and narrowed his eyes at it. He doubted he’d lifted anything above ten pounds since early December, let alone a sixty-pound saddle. 

“Screw it,” he growled, something bitter filling his mouth as he grabbed the pad and the saddle from each end, made sure his back was straight, then lifted with his legs, willing nothing to crack or snap and for his nerves to not immediately electrocute him or douse him in liquid fire like they had every damned month of that long dark winter.

But it was spring in Montana, under a cloudless blue sky. The last rain was a week ago, and the air was comforting and pleasant. So it was that Hosea, as he had been able to ever since he was _goddamn twelve,_ was able to pick up his own damn saddle without crumpling like a dry twig.

...The twisting to sling it over Silver Dollar’s towering back was another thing.

Determined to get it over with quickly, Hosea let out a snarl of effort as he slung the saddle and saddlepad over his head and pushed up on tip-toe to heave it onto Silver Dollar’s back, letting it fall sloppily onto the boy’s back as he felt a twinge in his spine that made the muscles in his back grow hot.

“You need any hel-?!”

 _“I’m fine!”_ he snapped at the voice of John, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes as he froze, willing the pain to never bloom. After a few seconds where it only settled back down, he let out a long breath and looked over his shoulder just in time to see John’s back as he walked away, shoulders rigid and head bowed with his hands in his pockets. 

He was just starting to feel guilty when Davey walked closer and said “Wait, are you- _actually_ going out to kill that boar?”

"Keep walking that horse," Hosea said sharply as he started fixing the blanket and the saddle onto Silver's withers.

"I _am,"_ Davey whined, sounding a little more like himself as he started walking Mustard in circles around Hosea and Silver Dollar. “I’m just sayin’, are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“You two were out to rob a stagecoach, not hunt a boar,” Hosea drawled as he worked on tightening the cinches. “It caught you off-guard, but I’ll be after it knowing what I’m in for. Besides, I’ve been hunting bears and boars since I was as tall as your knee.”

“You’re almost as tall as my knee now,” Davey tried to joke, but the withering glare Hosea fixed him with made him walk Mustard a little faster to reach the safety on the other side of Silver Dollar’s bulk. “No, but seriously, I don’t want you hurt, old man.”

“What did I just say, _young man?”_

“I know you’re the whole… master hunter of the group-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there.”

“But-”

“Nope.”

“But y-”

“Stop.”

“B-”

“Just think on that last thing you said for a minute, and I’m gonna grab my guns,” Hosea declared, tucking the last saddle strap into its loop and patting Silver Dollar’s neck before heading for his and Dutch’s tent. 

Davey started after him and said “I can ride with y-!”

 _“Cool down that horse,”_ Hosea said sternly over his shoulder, and with Davey sulking off into the distance with his head held low, Hosea marched through the scenic green meadow that made up their gang’s second camp location in Montana and stepped up onto the palette that made up the crude “floor” of his and Dutch’s lodgings. The shade was cool and comfortable as he stepped passed his rarely-used cot - he mostly ended up in Dutch’s bed as soon as the flaps were drawn closed - to his gun rack, taking off his rolling block rifle and double-barreled shotgun to sling over his shoulders. 

The sound of footsteps approaching the tent made him glance upwards to spy Dutch approaching the entrance of the tent, his eyes looking a million miles away as the man started saying “Swanson says Mac just has a bump on the head and a gash on his scalp. He looks a lot better all cleaned up, and after some bedrest he-” Dutch blinked and seemed to finally process Hosea shoving shotgun ammunition into his pockets, his expression sharpening. “What the Hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to go hunt that boar,” Hosea chirped, snapping his ammunition chest shut and straightening up. “It’ll be a nice break from camp! Lord knows I could use it after being _shut up here_ for _four months.”_

Dutch narrowed his eyes and cocked his hip, resting a hand on it. “Have you _forgotten_ how you _spent_ those four months?”

Bedridden in so much pain he’d been moved to tears at the worst of it, unable to move or sleep and barely able to breathe, leaving Dutch to hover anxiously over him asking endlessly what he could do to help no matter how many times Hosea said he didn’t know, leaving the man to sit at his side and stare at him like he was being tortured and endlessly run his fingers through his hair. He’d been caught scratching at the old scars on his forearms when Hosea’s sobs kept him up past two in the morning more than once. Hosea taking sick halfway through winter didn’t help matters.

Hosea forcefully shoulder-checked Dutch on his way out of their tent, making the man almost lose his balance and fall off the palette as he brushed past him, drawling, “Oh, I’m well aware.”

Dutch caught himself and immediately started falling into step beside him, catching up easily with his infuriatingly long legs. “So you think it’s a good idea for you to just run off and fight a whole damn boar, huh? You should _stay in camp,_ Old Girl.”

“Don’t you ‘Old Girl’ me.”

“Let Arthur go after the damn thing-”

“Arthur’s busy enough, and ‘sides, he’s been out for a week doing his thing. I’m a _hunter,_ Dutch, born and raised, let me do _my_ thing.”

“Your ‘thing’ recently is barely clinging to life.”

Hosea shot a glare at him. “I’ve been better for the better part of a month, Dutch. I keep telling you, it’s _just_ the _cold season._ It’s why you didn’t see this in California, but it’s _warm_ now. I’m _fine-”_ and, right on cue, he had to stop walking as his lungs tickled, forcing him to raise his sleeve to his mouth and cough into it, a harsh rattle reverberating around his chest. He hacked for a few long seconds, then cleared his throat as he continued to wheeze, feeling like he wasn’t fully processing the oxygen he managed to breathe in.

When he next looked at Dutch, the man looked like a haughty cat who got the cream. It made Hosea want to sock him in the gut. “I can send someone else out-”

“Dutch, I need this,” Hosea said flatly, continuing his trek towards Silver Dollar and growing ever-more-frustrated at the sight of Dutch in his peripheral vision. “Half the reason I wanna go out and do this is to escape from your goddamn motherhenning.”

“Oh, so this is all about you proving some petty point-?”

“You’ve spent the better part of this season making me feel like a porcelain doll to keep on your shelf instead of a _man-”_

“Oh don’t you start-”

“-when I keep telling you I’m just fine to ride out and don’t need to be waited on hand and goddamn foot or bound to the bed-”

Once they were both far enough from the main camp and in the horse area Dutch took the opportunity to puff up at him and drawl “You sure weren’t sayin’ that _in_ bed.”

Hosea stopped suddenly and puffed himself up, planting his hands on his hips and cocking one out as Dutch stopped and turned around to look at him. Hosea raised his chin. “Bed could only be exciting for a while, since I sure as Hell found you _lacking,”_ he snipped with a flare of his eyes, brushing past him again.

Dutch sputtered behind him and rushed to catch up again. “What the Hell is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Just saying it didn’t feel like _I_ was the impotent one.”

Hosea was just about to reach Silver Dollar when Dutch swept himself in between him and the saddle to glower down at him and growl “What crawled up _your_ ass and died?”

“Your cock,” Hosea spat back, moving to round around the other side of Silver Dollar only for Dutch to sharply catch his arm and hold him still. It was the most physical the man had been with him in months, so he paused and looked expectantly at the way Dutch’s nostrils were flaring and laughed at his glare. He tapped on Dutch’s hand for emphasis and said, “Careful, you’ll break the glass.”

Dutch instantly let go and stepped back, his expression shifting into something apologetic, and Hosea scoffed in disappointment.

“If you’re on such a warpath to an early grave,” Dutch growled out, “at least take someone with you. John. Bill.”

“I’ll just order them not to follow,” Hosea drawled, stepping up to Silver Dollar’s side and taking the slack out of the rein before grabbing the saddlehorn and jumping up into the stirrup, swinging up into his saddle. 

“Then _I’ll_ go with you,” Dutch drawled back, stalking off towards The Count and glaring over his shoulder as Hosea laughed at him again.

"Wasn't expecting to carry dead weight on this hunting trip!" he quipped as he spurred Silver Dollar into a gallop out of camp.

It took only two minutes for The Count to come tearing up the trail behind him, pulling up even with Silver Dollar as they briskly cantered towards Smithwood Trail.

"What the Hell has gotten into you?!" Dutch snapped. "Because I must tell you, Hosea, I ain't too fond of your recent _fits!"_

"'Fits,' hmm. So you infantilize me as well!"

"Oh for God's sake!" Dutch spat, facing forward in his saddle again. "I'm done talking with you when you're impossible like this!"

"Well good then! You can turn your little ass around and ride on back to camp!"

"No!"

"Then shut up!"

 _"You_ shut up!"

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

The hour’s ride after that was spent in relative silence that, gratefully, drained away the fury and eased rapidly into comfortable awe as they got further and further into the northern Montana countryside, filled with rolling emerald hills of soft grass that rolled in the wind, set against thick patches of pinewood forests that rolled into the embrace of the towering snow-dusted mountains of the Rockies, looming nearby like young guardian deities, pouring fourth shimmering sapphire rivers and creeks and streams that wound and twisted through the land like ribbons dancing in the wind.

After some time to let their tempers settle, Hosea extended an olive branch by saying “This really is beautiful country. I… like this more than California, if I’m being honest. The mountains feel closer to God.”

Dutch eyed him carefully for a long moment in the saddle as the trees steadily rolled past them to the comforting thudding of their horses’ hooves, an old familiar sound that always eased the nerves, the Montanan wind caressing their faces and playfully attempting to steal their hats. His expression finally softened. “I just… wish winters wouldn’t hit you so hard.”

Hosea hummed a gentle note. “You and me both.”

Dutch let out a slow breath. “So… have you got it out of your system now? Can we head back?”

Hosea glanced down and to the side to meet Dutch’s eyes from atop The Count’s small frame and smirked. “Oh, don’t worry, Dutch, I’ll protect you from the big bad boar.”

Dutch’s expression hardened slightly. “Oh, _thank_ you _so much,_ you _absolute gentleman,”_ he drawled.

“I’m just saying, Dutch, you don’t have a good track record when it comes to big game. Or any game outside of fish.”

“Hardy har. And _I’m_ just saying, _Hosea-”_ Dutch very consciously and visibly worked his voice down into something softer and more patient, his narrowed eyes widening into something earnest “-that you haven’t been able to move around all that well and your hands have been hurtin’ ya, and there ain’t no shame in admitting that maybe hunting is a thing of the past-”

Hosea scoffed. “‘A thing of the past?’ That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Hosea,” Dutch said tiredly, “there’s a difference-”

“The day I stop hunting and fishing and walking through nature and leaving my bed is the day I die, Dutch, do you hear? Now is that something you want?”

 _“No,”_ Dutch said emphatically, looking at him pleadingly, “but I don’t want that to be because you got eaten by a fucking pig!”

“I can handle myself!”

“This whole thing is stupid. Neither of us should be risking ourselves like this.”

“You’ve lost your sense of adventure, old friend.”

Dutch shot him a frigid glare. “This mean you don’t wanna ‘settle down’ no more?” he asked, his voice carrying a low, cold note.

Hosea met Dutch’s eye again and slowed Silver Dollar to a walk. Dutch followed suit, keeping The Count even with the Turkoman as they both stared each other down, a hard edge sharpening their eyes.

“This ain’t about me,” Hosea said forcefully, his chest already heaving for air as he felt his face grow hot. Silver Dollar stopped on his own and looked over his shoulder with a wide eye, rotating his ears back. The Count stopped a little ahead, snorting and pawing at the ground as his ears also pinned back, reflecting the way Dutch was coiling up in the saddle. “This is about _them.”_ He pointed back down the trail, down the direction they came from, towards camp where all of their family remained. “If you’re smart, running a farm can be an adventure every day. But the robbing? The killing? That ain’t an adventure no more. You talk about us risking ourselves on a hunting trip, but what do you call it when you take all those kids back there out to dodge bullets? They deserve a _life,_ Dutch, they deserve-”

“You forgetting I’m the one who proposed settling the gang down in the first place?” Dutch snapped. “Don’t talk to me about what they deserve.”

“We’ve had the money to settle down in Montana for a while now,” Hosea said sharply, sitting up tall in his saddle. “What the hell are we doing?”

“I haven’t found a parcel of land yet,” Dutch shot back roughly, a dark shadow filling his eyes. “And we need more money if we’re gonna do this right. We used up half of our budget getting to Montana in the first place, and winter was hard and dry and the pickings in this state are few and far between, and there ain’t exactly a whole lot of rich folk in these parts we can pilfer, and we need to pay for land, building materials, livestock- for, Hell, twenty people?”

“We have enough money to ingratiate ourselves with the local-”

“We are _not. Becoming. Workers, Hosea._ We’re doing this with our own dignity-”

“Only so much dignity in death.”

_“Who’s dying?”_

“Mac, almost! Trying to rob that damn coach!”

“It wasn’t no gunmen that banged up Mac, it was the same damn hog you’re set on hunting!”

“I could teach them boys how to hunt properly if I was allowed to leave my goddamn princess tower! And if you want money so bad, why not let me out to do some _work?”_

Dutch’s building fury instantly broke, his expression and eyes softening again. “It got to me, Hosea, listening to you in so much pain and not being able to do anything about it. To watch the things that worked before stop working. Then that horrible cough started up, a-and-”

Hosea slowly narrowed his eyes. “Don’t pity me.”

“It ain’t- _pity,”_ Dutch shot back, his hands clenching white-knuckled around the reins as his brow furrowed. “It’s _worry.”_

Hosea huffed. “You’ll have a lot more to worry about if you don’t get me in a house by next winter.”

Dutch clenched his jaw. “We weathered one bad winter while running just fine, and we’ll weather all the rest just fine as long as you stop pushing your body beyond what it-”

“I know more about my own damn body than you do!” Hosea snapped, kicking Silver Dollar into a canter again, frowning further at Dutch spurring The Count to follow. “I’ve been telling you repeatedly that I’m doing better and that I’m fine, so I guess I’ll just have to _show_ you! Quite frankly it’s a miracle you haven’t bent me over your knee and dragged me back to camp by the hair like some unruly wife!”

“I’m still thinking about it,” Dutch gruffed.

Even the gorgeous scenery and wildlife around them couldn’t temper their mood for the rest of the ride to Pecking Ridge. The distant elk brays went unnoticed - the rabbits darting across the trail, unseen. Even the eagles and vultures flying overhead were invisible. After another while of riding, they finally caught sight of the intersection that the Callanders were staking out and Hosea turned Silver Dollar off into the trees, The Count close on his heels.

He pulled Silver Dollar up shortly amidst a tall thicket of pines and dismounted, dropping to the ground onto the dark mulch and bed of pine needles, tossing up the soothing aroma of the mountain forest as he patted Silver Dollar on the neck and fed him a sugar cube for his troubles. Dutch was already hovering over him, so Hosea sighed and said “Come on. Let’s try and find where the attack happened.”

“You know there are bears in these here parts, right?” Dutch asked tightly, looking around them as they moved through the conifers. “Not just this mankiller boar?”

“It didn’t kill no man yet, quit your fussing.”

“So you or I get to be the first. What an honor.”

“It’s no trouble if you brought a big enough gun.” He glanced over his shoulder and smirked, looking Dutch up and down to find the man packing nothing but his twin Schofields on each side of his hips. 

Dutch’s face gained a touch of red. “I didn’t have enough time to prepare,” he snapped. “Was too busy chasing your fool a-”

“Quiet.” Hosea looked around the ground on top of the ridge they managed to find overlooking the intersection - the ground was treaded heavily and harshly disturbed by four massive split hooves, and he could spot the impressions where the boys had laid in cover. Two pairs of boots had dug into the ground, and one shot off down the hill while the other moved between the first trail and the deep harsh hoof prints, where they were completely consumed by harshly churned Earth. Small droplets of blood speckled the wood chippings dry enough to hold onto the scarlet in the midst of the commotion, and then the hooves charged off to the northwest. The first pair of boots then doubled back to an impression under a tree with blood smeared across its bark, and that was all Hosea needed to see.

“Davey wounded it to get it away from Mac,” he said absently, following the hoofprints. “It ran northwest.”

Dutch let out a heavy breath. “So it’s wounded. That’s good, right? Easier to kill?”

“Harder. Wounded animals are more aggressive.” Hosea fixed him with a judgemental glare over his shoulder just long enough to see a muscle in Dutch’s jaw tic before he softened and forced himself to let go of the spite that coursed through his veins. “Here,” he said gently, slinging the shotgun off of his back and holding it out to Dutch. “Take this. It might take more than twelve .45s to take that thing down if it charges you at a bad angle.”

“So we’re doing this,” Dutch said tiredly, taking the shotgun with a short nod of thanks. He hoisted the gun up into a comfortable grip, then checked inside to see if it was loaded before snapping it shut again and cocking the forend. For all that Dutch was ill-suited for hunting with his short patience and loud demeanor - and propensity to freeze at the sight of dangerous game - he was well and truly the best gunman Hosea knew, surpassed only by their two savant sons trained under Dutch’s master marksman eye. He was a good man to have at his side for a massive boar out for blood.

...The fact that the double-barrel had a nasty kickback that Hosea hoped to avoid was a fact that only he had to know.

Him appreciating Dutch’s company beyond the utility of a gun at his back... wasn’t.

“Hey Dutch, you forgot something,” Hosea said casually.

“What?” Dutch looked up from the tracks on the ground and stiffened when Hosea stretched up to peck him on the cheek. It was the only apology or expression of gratitude he would receive.

“Now come on. Let’s go hunt us a boar,” Hosea declared with a smile, slinging his rifle off of his back and fixing it into his grip before stalking off down the trail of the wild hog’s hoofprints. 

Dutch blinked behind him, then followed.

\--

The sun was three-quarters of the way through the sky as they started briskly picking their way along the trail of the boar. The beast wound its way down the opposite side of the hill from the trail and set off deep into the wilderness, crashing through spruce saplings and knocking aside young pines with deep gorges through their trunks where they stood splintered and angled off-center, their bark only snagging a few dark brown hairs for their troubles. They followed the wounded trees for about two miles before the hog’s trail turned north and ran up a steep rocky ridge.

Dutch carefully looked around them with a grave frown, then said, “We could try going around, the land looks a bit more level a half mile more or so West.”

Hosea slowly lifted his chin to follow the trail directly up the slope of jutting rocks and loose gravel that disappeared into hard stone on the upper half of the slope. “This terrain ain’t nothin’ we haven't climbed before, and I don’t wanna lose the trail or lose any more time.”

“I mean…” Dutch eyed him carefully, letting the pause hang long enough for the sound of Hosea’s whistling lungs to fill the silence, loud and overbearing. “Maybe we can call the horses?”

Hosea shot him a glare and sucked in a deep breath, swallowing to quiet the sound of his strain just from their brief walk. He immediately slung his rifle onto his shoulder and started scrambling up the slope, digging his boots into the gravel. “Don’t be scared to get your fancy pants dirty, Dutch!”

“I-!” Dutch barked, then slung the shotgun over his shoulder and started after him, doubling the sound of rattling rocks and sliding gravel as they both started scrabbling up the slope. “I ain’t taking your bait! The only thing I’m scared of is you rolling your ankle and all that mess starting up a- _Careful!”_

Hosea finished belly-flopping onto the stone after a rock rolled loose from under his foot - he caught himself by clutching a few rocks above him at the cost of cutting his hands, and the bloom of pain in his right knee said it was probably skinned a little. Dutch’s big plodding steps created a massive uproar of gravel as he half-ran, half-crawled up to him, and Hosea rolled his eyes before redoubling his speed up the slope, darting out of Dutch’s concerned outstretched hands and his shout of “You okay?!” 

“You gonna ask me that each time I sneeze too?” he called back, carefully clawing his way up a loose patch before hooking his fingertips into a crag in the rock, pulling himself up. He heard the sound of Dutch slipping and sliding down a ways with a pained _agh!_ in his haste to catch up, and after a quick look over his shoulder to make sure Dutch wasn’t hurt too badly, he tossed his head back and laughed before continuing his climb up the firmer rock. “You look like a dumbass!” he yelled, breathless.

“And you’re acting like a child!” Dutch yelled up to him, clambering back up onto all fours with a low groan.

 _“Try and catch me~!”_ Hosea sing-songed before coughing from the strain, feeling a bead of sweat drop down his temple as he carefully hauled himself the rest of the way up the slope with a mixture of carefully placed fingers and shoving his boots into whatever crags he could find. He finally jumped and hooked his fingers around the roots of some young firs at the top of the slope and scraped his boots along the rock until he finally rolled over the top and into the soil above, staring up at the blue sky and the sharp silhouettes of trees in his peripheral vision. 

He allowed himself to catch his breath for only a few seconds - he let out a single, harsh cough - and he glanced down the slope to find Dutch still trying to rush his way up. He snorted and pushed himself up to his feet, looking down at the ground and immediately catching sight of the trail again, following it northwards at a power walk, relishing the pleasure of victory brought about by his own strength.

He was about fifty yards down the trail when he finally heard Dutch’s voice breathlessly cry _“Wait up!”_ behind him. He smirked and turned back to wait for his partner as Dutch tiredly stomped up to him with a face that could only be described as a pout. Hosea simply hissed “Shh!” and moved on.

After another four miles of tracking the beast, winding their way up and down and around emerald hills and thick brush, the boar’s tracks led them directly to the bank of a wide, flowing river running so quickly and violently that the water kicked up white foam in its rapids, peppered only with rocks and various fallen logs as a means across for as far as the eye could see. 

“Okay, that’s it,” Dutch said, gulping down a deep breath as Hosea steadied himself on his knees, blinking away sweat from his eyes as his legs trembled. “There’s no way across this river. We should just call our horses and _go home._ Enough of this!”

The next thing out of Dutch’s mouth was a shrill, panicked gasp when Hosea leapt from the bank onto the first rock. _“HOSEA!”_ he roared.

“Come on out, the water’s fine!” Hosea called, grinning over his shoulder before jumping over the roaring water to the second stone, sliding only a little when his knees almost buckled.

 _“Don’t play games, Hosea!”_ Dutch snarled, pacing back and forth on the bank like a mare in heat. “Get back here! _Now!”_

Hosea turned around and curtseyed, then flipped him the bird. _“Make_ me!”

 _“‘Sea!”_ Dutch’s enraged expression snapped into panic again when Hosea leapt to another rock. “Jesus Christ, man, will you at least wait for me?!”

“I think I can manage that!”

With a loud noise tearing from his throat like the bray of a harassed bull, Dutch leapt onto the first rock, then the second, then oh-so-carefully sprang onto the third where Hosea stood, bracing his hands on Hosea’s hips. 

“See? Isn’t this fun?” Hosea asked brightly, elbowing Dutch in the stomach. “Is this that ‘adventure’ you always crave?”

“You’re insane,” Dutch gruffed with a scowl, firmly grabbing him to hold him steady before he jumped ahead to the next rock, held his arms out to catch his balance, then turned around and reached out for Hosea. “You’re lucky I’m here, you know, so I don’t hear about your body washing up miles down the way from one of the boys or the town paper or never even know that happened to you at all!”

Hosea sneered at him before jumping onto the next rock and into Dutch’s embrace. “You seem to have your mind all made up about what I am or ain’t capable of instead of actually listening to me,” he growled into his chest.

“What’s there to listen to?” Dutch rumbled, jumping to the next rock and repeating the same process, turning around to reach his arms out for Hosea. “Your bitching?”

Hosea fixed him with a cold glare for a solid ten seconds as he steeled his breath, then turned and lunged diagonally for a rock a little further off, barely catching his boots on its nearest edge before falling onto his side, snapping his hands around the stone as his boots dipped into the water and were almost ripped off his feet. He pulled himself up into a sitting position as Dutch shrieked _“GOD!”,_ casually pulling his boots fully back on before pushing himself up to stand again, feeling beautifully alive thanks to the growing bruise in his side. He hopped up on top of a fallen log and started serenely balancing his way across it right as Dutch hopped onto his rock.

In no time at all, he safely jumped down onto the opposite bank, Dutch jumping down beside him a few seconds later and crowding into his space, growling “You know I’m starting to _consider_ the option of bending you over my knee-”

"We're almost there," Hosea interrupted, side-eyeing Dutch and looking him up and down, his expression shuttering and hardening, his upper lip curling slightly. "Stay _focused."_ He slung his rifle off his shoulder for emphasis and bent his knees to quiet his steps, crouching along the trail towards a pile of dung nearby. Dutch audibly ground his teeth behind him, but followed, readying his shotgun with harsh, sharp movements. 

Hosea knelt down onto one knee beside the manure and peered at it for a second before sweeping his gaze to the tracks, heading northwest. “This is fresh,” he whispered. “Keep your guard up.”

He pushed himself up onto his feet again with a faint grunt and struggled to stay moving at a crouch with the way the muscles in his thighs and calves and abdomen burned, and his lungs felt and sounded like an old hearth blower as he traversed through the trees, rattling and whistling despite his best efforts to keep them quiet. He went down on one knee again a dozen yards off to catch his breath, carefully eyeing the soil and mulch and furrowing his brow at how the track became erratic, crossing over itself and turning and shooting off east and west.

“We oughta split up,” he breathed, propping his weight up with the butt of his rifle, “I’ll take the western route, you take the eastern-”

Dutch crowded into his space to growl _“No,”_ low and quiet. “We are _not_ splitting up. I ain’t going nowhere.”

“Then you best stay right on my ass,” Hosea whispered, narrowing his eyes as he shakily pushed himself upright again and made his way west.

Dutch may as well have been attached to his hip. “It ain’t too late to turn back.”

“It ain’t too late to be my _partner.”_

Dutch stopped walking, but Hosea didn’t. Dutch quietly lunged forward to chase him down, hissing _“What do you think I’ve been doing all winter?”_

“Now ain’t the time to-”

“I never asked for anything in return-”

“You don’t _expect_ anything in return either-”

Dutch stopped in his tracks to continue “-and I have sacrificed countless things for you, I’m _continuing_ to sacrifice-”

Hosea stopped the next second, angling himself around to hiss “-because you’ve created this noble caricature of me in your fool head instead of-”

“-everything for you and what gets me is that _you used to like it_ when I’d go out of my way to-”

“-listening to what I _want_ because you _think_ you know what I _need_ when-”

“Hosea.”

“-I _need_ us to be _equals,_ I _need_ you to listen to me, and don’t think I haven’t noticed-”

“...H-Hosea.”

“-the way that you’ve been hurting yourself feeling like I suddenly ain’t a support for you no more-”

Dutch snatched his sleeve and Hosea finally processed the fear in the man’s eyes as he stared wall-eyed ahead of them. _“Look.”_

Hosea looked.

And standing there, not ten feet away from them, staring down at them from where it stood in the brush with dark manic eyes and flaring nostrils, stood the Goliath of a boar.

Both men slowly stood up to their full height at the same time, Dutch’s hand still fisted in Hosea’s sleeve. They both stared the boar down for a solid ten seconds, and the boar stared them down in return, before Hosea moved to raise his rifle-

With a bellowing scream that harshly reverberated through the air with enough force it felt like it could split the trees, the boar charged.

Hosea hoisted his rifle and fired at the same time Dutch harshly shoved him to the side, making his shot go wide as he flew through the air and landed on his side with a _whump_ right as Dutch threw himself in the opposite direction, getting clipped by the boar's tusk when the hog thrashed its head towards him and sending him spinning before landing on top of the shotgun with a pained yelp.

The boar immediately dug its hooves into the soil and whirled around, lowering its head to gore Dutch while the man was still recovering.

"HEY!" Hosea screamed, snapping his cattleman into his hand with a flick of his wrist and instantly unloading all six of his shots into its shoulder and neck. "OVER HERE!"

The boar whirled towards him with an enraged scream and churned its hooves into the Earth to propel itself towards him, and Hosea used his guns to shove himself upright and _run._

 _"Dutch!"_ Hosea screamed, bobbing and weaving around trees in an attempt to slow the beast down only to have it trample most of them, _"Shotgun! Shoot it! SHOOT IT!"_

Dutch was already fully upright on his feet again and bracing himself as he aimed the shotgun with a snarl, a single strand of hair dangling in front of his eyes from his mussed leaf-covered locks, only for his eyes to widen in fear again when Hosea skidded and rolled, barely missing the thrash of a tusk. _"I can't without catching you in the buckshot!"_ Dutch bellowed.

It was a fair point. And so, with a scream of "SHIT!", Hosea threw his rifle in Dutch's general direction and then dashed towards a narrow crag in the Earth, throwing himself into it just in time for the boar to ram its tusks into the ground on either side of the crag with enough force to make the ground shake, unleashing an enraged squeal that made his teeth hurt as it almost ruptured his ear drums. The boar lifted its head and looked at him with an eye blazing with murderous hatred before it lunged forward and slammed a hoof into the crag - Hosea screamed and rolled to the side as the massive nail speared into the ground right behind his spine and gouged a deep scar into the gravel. He could barely hear Dutch shriek _“Dammit, it’s jammed!”_ in the distance before the sound of six revolver shots rang through the air - the boar unleash a pained scream, but simply changed its angle to try and slam its other hoof on top of Hosea, making him scream and roll again as he finally managed to draw his second cattleman, wrapping his arm around his shoulder to blindly unload all his bullets upwards towards its head, making it scream again. It reared up-

“HEY!” came Dutch’s yell, sounding very close, and then a long broken tree branch with a sharp end was speared into the hog’s side. 

The boar staggered backwards with a wet gargling bellow and turned towards Dutch, letting out a wrathful scream as it kicked its legs up and lowered its head to run Dutch down. 

Hosea popped his head up out of the crag just in time to see Dutch wrangle the shotgun back into his grasp and fall on his ass in his rush to back up, firing a shot point-blank into the hog’s head when it was almost on top of him, blowing off half its skull in a cloud of gore and red mist.

He also saw it when the hog’s one-ton body, carried by momentum, collapsed on top of him.

His ears rang.

 _“Dutch!”_ Hosea barked, his voice sounding distant to his own ears, and he quickly holstered his guns before springing up out of the crag and sprinting down the slope to the hog’s corpse. _“Dutch!”_ He could barely see Dutch’s fingers peeking out under the mass of the animal, and he didn’t think, didn’t feel, didn’t process much of anything at all before he squatted down, straightened his spine, clawed his fingers into the boar’s flesh and _lifted_ with a snarled scream of effort, lifting the carcass up just enough for those fingers to claw into the ground, allowing Dutch to scramble and drag himself out from under the beast, covered in blood, and the second he was clear Hosea collapsed with a choked-off sob of pain.

All he could do or think about was crawling his way over into Dutch’s outstretched arms, and they both held each other by the elbows and their shoulders and their heads, breathlessly checking each other over with wordless desperation. Dutch’s entire front and half of his face was smeared with blood, a thick deep scarlet that made it impossible to tell which was his and which was the hog’s, and with each cut and laceration he found on Dutch’s head or neck or torso or arms or legs - there was a visible cut in his side where his coat and vest and shirt had been sliced clean through - he got more and more upset, his eyes stinging and forcing him to blink away the blurriness in his vision. Dutch, for his part, was gently gliding his fingers around the hot, pulsing area on his cheek that was slowly oozing blood, staring at it with large round eyes of concern as he guided his other hand down Hosea’s ribs, turning his attention to his torn jeans and the blood that leaked out through the denim.

“God, I’m sorry,” Hosea murmured quietly, bumping his forehead against Dutch’s before feeling down each of the man’s arms and hands for breaks. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, this was stupid, you were right. Dammit.”

“Naw,” Dutch panted, slowly blinking at him and shaking his head a little. “You shouldn’t be sorry.”

“Oh hush,” Hosea sighed, turning his attention to carefully feeling down Dutch’s ribs with clinical hands that shook only a little. “This hurt?” Dutch shook his head. “This hurt?” Dutch shook his head. Hosea pressed their foreheads together again. “I almost got you killed. Almost got myself killed. I woulda died coming out here alone.”

“Hosea,” Dutch said softly, quietly, slowly wrapping his hands around Hosea’s wrists and easing them up from his torso to frame his neck instead, his thundering pulse pounding against his palms, “you saved my life.”

“Almost took it,” Hosea murmured, closing his eyes. “After spending this whole time fighting with you over the stupidest horseshit.”

Dutch swallowed, then nudged his head against Hosea’s, getting him to open his eyes. “It ain’t horseshit,” he said lowly, his expression splintering into a softness colored by regret. “I underestimated you. You don’t need protectin’. Or if you do, then I do too.”

Hosea tugged his hands away from Dutch’s and leaned back to grab the man’s right leg, carefully straightening it out and feeling along the bone. “Tell me if anything hurts.”

Dutch shook his head again. “Hosea… I haven’t been treatin’ you as a partner. And I _have_ been shuttin’ you out and… and shuttin’ you in. I just… I know stress is… a trigger for that whole mess your body goes through, and I… I never, _ever_ want to see you in that much pain again.”

Hosea finally stopped examining Dutch’s legs to look up at him, a grave frown dragging the corners of his mouth down as his brow pinched upwards. “This ain’t going away, dearest,” he said quietly. “This is a new normal for me. And I need you to stop trying to prevent it and instead help me _manage it.”_ He resituated his weight off of his knees and onto his hip. “You’ve been keeping me shut up with nothing to do or think about because you always thought that would help, and that me going out and keeping busy would make it worse or bring the flare back, no matter how much I said I needed it because-” he gestured and shrugged “-I guess you thought I was just being some whiny fishwife instead of actually listening to me say that _distractions help,_ and that having nothing to focus on makes the pain _worse.”_ After a long beat, he huffed a gentle laugh. “And you can’t fuck me to keep my mind off it all the time.”

Dutch looked at him - and truly _looked_ at him, his eyes shining with the same worshipful reverence they had on that first hard and agonizing night, when they finally came together again after an age of bitterness. “I guess… I was… _upset…_ at the thought of how it felt like I’d abandoned you before. That it took Arthur to notice you hurtin’ instead of me. And it… scares me, to think about the two of us growin’ apart, or- or you hurt, or you dyin’, so I just… tried my hardest to hold you as tight as I could.” He huffed a hollow laugh, a shadow clouding his eyes as he dropped his gaze. “Can’t seem to do anything but hurt ya no matter what I try.”

Hosea reached up to frame the man’s banged up face in his hands, lifting it up to look at him. He smiled softly at his life-partner and then kissed the top of his hairline, slowly blinking before leaning back again. “You’re a sweet man, b’shert,” he said softly. “You’re a _good_ man. As long as you ain’t running away or holding on to me so tight you break my heart.” Dutch’s expression crumpled again as dark shadowy memories passed through the back of both of their minds - of venom and tears and blood and sickness, of Hosea sobbing into an empty bottle as his only comfort or walking out of Dutch’s tent with hand-shaped bruises on his arms. “Come on,” he murmured, leaning forward to embrace his soulmate as Dutch wound his arms back to hold him in return. “We need to get this blood off and these wounds cleaned up.”

Dutch took a deep, shuddering breath, then nodded, patting him on the back before letting go and clambering to his feet, offering a hand to Hosea to help pull him up. Hosea smiled at him and took it, and Dutch flexed his arm to brace it so Hosea could use it as an anchor to haul himself upright on his own. 

Both men turned towards the boar at the same time.

“Nice job,” Hosea said breathlessly, a slow smile growing on his face. “It’s just a shame we couldn’t get a clean kill.”

“Kinda hard to get a clean kill when the damn thing’s trying to murder us,” Dutch muttered, pulling out his hunting knife and walking towards it. 

Hosea raised an eyebrow. “What ya doin’ there?”

“Taking a trophy,” Dutch said with a grunt as he knelt down, setting his blade to the base of the tusk. He finally sawed it off and held it out for Hosea. “Here. For Mac and Davey.”

Hosea quirked an eyebrow at him, then took the tusk with a warm smile. Dutch smiled back at him, then turned and began sawing at the second one. “This one’s for us.”

“You and your momentos,” Hosea said, his voice low and sweet before turning to the southeast and whistling for the horses.

“You really- think-” Dutch grunted and growled slightly as he finally sawed off the second tusk, panting for breath, “-they’re close enough to hear?”

Hosea shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

“They’ll sniff us out eventually,” Dutch said roughly, smiling at the sight of Hosea’s outstretched hand. He took it and pulled himself up, swaying close as Hosea swayed towards him in turn, the both of them starting to tremble as their adrenaline began to ebb. “But I… I think we oughta spend the night out here. I don’t think I can make the ride back to camp.”

“...I can’t either,” Hosea confessed, his voice strained with pain as his trembling began to slide into shivering, and not from the cold. 

“Let’s go find someplace safe to clean up,” Dutch said softly, wrapping his arm around Hosea’s shoulders. Hosea wrapped his arm around the small of Dutch’s back, and together, they warily limped their way towards the river in the hopes of calm waters.

\--

The sun was a warm blaze of blood-orange filtering its way through the leaves and needles of the trees on the horizon as the men settled into a calm pool of a creek that lazily babbled its way down from the mountains to join the river, their ruined clothes discarded in the grass nearby with their satchels on the bank as they both set about the task of washing the blood off of their bodies and cleaning out their cuts and scrapes, pouring water from their cupped hands over each other’s hair and then working their fingers into each other’s scalps to work out the dirt and debris. Dutch’s hair was far more difficult for this particular task, the pomade and mud and dried blood creating a horrible goopy crust that fought against being removed every step of the way, but Hosea’s hands were patient as they reverently ran the water repeatedly through Dutch’s long locks, gently pulling the mess out and releasing it into the flowing stream, occasionally guiding Dutch’s head down to nestle between his thighs so he could attack those curly raven locks with as much water as the creek had to offer. 

When Dutch’s hair was finally clean and free from contaminants and their skin was free from blood, their cuts and scrapes doused in alcohol and the particularly deep ones wrapped in bandages, Dutch reached out to cup Hosea by the back of his neck and guided him closer, parting his lips with a single glance down at Hosea’s, his eyes pleading. Hosea smirked and closed the distance, scooting himself between Dutch’s legs to meet him in the kiss, their lips molding perfectly against each other like always, their pace slow and sweet as Hosea opened his mouth to embrace Dutch’s tongue, their breaths hitching as Hosea reached one hand up to tangle his fingers into the base of Dutch’s newly-freed curls as his other hand reached down to caress back and forth along the hair of the man’s inner thigh. Dutch’s hands gently curled around the curve of his ass and the large spread of dark purple and blue on his side that made a small bloom of pain flare out across his ribs. It made heat pool and spiral down into Hosea’s groin, and he hitched his breath into their kiss, shifting closer to crawl into Dutch’s lap and arching his spine to guide Dutch’s fingers closer to his entrance.

Dutch apparently thought it was an attempt to escape his hands, however, because the man instantly let him go and leaned back until he had to prop himself up onto his elbows, staring up at him with wide-eyed alarm, hissing “Shit, I’m sorr-”

“Listen,” Hosea commanded, narrowing his eyes, his voice an octave lower than usual, carrying a firm warning cadence that made Dutch snap to attention. He slowly leaned forward until he planted his hands on each side of Dutch’s ribs. “You’re going to listen to me and you’re not going to say anything until I allow you to speak. Eyes on me. Focus. Understand?”

Dutch eyed him warily, then slowly nodded.

“I…” he started, then took a deep breath to steel himself. He clenched his jaw. “I’m scared.”

Dutch opened his mouth as if to answer, then slowly closed it again, swallowing thickly.

“However scared you are at the thought of my body wasting away with me still in it, _trust me,_ it’s _much_ scarier for me,” he said lowly, his eyes opening wider as a window into his own vulnerability. “I can admit that I ain’t what I used to be. I can. And I can admit that I’ve… been cruel to my body in the past. That I wanted to accelerate my own death. That there are still days where I struggle with thoughts about wanting to die. ...More than I’d like, actually.” Dutch’s expression twisted into something ugly, like a knife was twisting in his knee. “I can understand why… why I might have lost some of your trust,” he said quietly, his eyes stinging. His voice began becoming unsteady and splintered when he continued, “But I _need_ to not feel… like some… like a burden. Like deadweight. Like I-I’ve already lost what few things I still _have.”_ Dutch opened and closed his jaw again and reached up to frame his face. Hosea leaned into his touch. “And I… I have always loved it when you’ve treaded lightly with me. I-” he huffed a fragile laugh “-I _needed_ it, before. I needed that gentle touch. Those constant check ins. Sometimes I still do, but-” he grimaced a smile and shook his head, hot tears slipping down his cheeks. “But lately it’s been making me feel… I don’t know. Sick. Stupid. Weak. Like I’m made of glass. I… I love it when you take care of me, but sometimes I just need to feel - strong, and... capable, and... tough. I need to feel like a _man._ I need to feel _alive._ And lately I haven’t been feeling like much of anything at all.”

Dutch opened his mouth, then winced and looked at him pleadingly. Hosea blinked away a few more tears in confusion before rattling himself and managing, “You can talk. You can do anything you want. I…”

The transfer of power and control to Dutch was an almost visual thing, as Hosea wilted and curled into himself, losing the strong chords that made up his silhouette as Dutch sat up and grabbed him by the shoulders, sitting him up tall in front of him and dragging him by the hips to sit in his lap, reaching a hand up to grab his chin and tilt it up to look at him. “Schatje,” Dutch said quietly, still holding Hosea by the chin while his other held him by the hip, digging his fingertips harshly into his flesh, “What do you need?”

The harsh points of contact made the heat flare brightly in his groin to remind him that it was still there, spiraling out into his core to make him ache with emptiness. His breath hitched as he stared into Dutch’s eyes, so dark in the dim light they looked almost black, like fertile soil after rain. “I need you to touch me like I’m not made of glass and not talk to me like I’m an infant.”

“Then get up,” Dutch said sternly, pushing him off of his lap to land harshly in the water. “Get up.” He pushed himself to his feet and then grabbed Hosea by the arm, hauling him up to his feet to crowd into his space, emphasizing all five inches of his advantage in height as he loomed over Hosea, rolling his shoulders back. Hosea shivered. “What do you want?”

The cadence in Dutch’s voice was harsh and the lines of his muscles were violent, but this was a language they’d been speaking for over twenty-five years, used in countless cons and plays to escape or get into all sorts of situations, a language that meant _fight me, trust me, I won’t hurt you._ In privacy, it was even an act that Hosea played for Dutch a handful of times - when the man came to him and kneeled at his feet, his hands drifting towards fresh scabs on his arms or thighs, begging Hosea to make him stop thinking and… hurt him in a way that wouldn’t _hurt_ him.

Hosea heaved in a breath and took stock of the pain settled deep into all of his joints, in his back and hips and knees and feet and hands. He thought of the pain promised in the ripples of Dutch’s muscles, ghosted in droplets of water and covered in gooseflesh, painted by the cool lilacs of dusk. In the stirring of his cock where it hung between the thick drums of his thighs.

Hosea looked into Dutch’s eyes and saw nothing but the same deep wells of love and promises he made to the man on those dark nights long ago. _Let me keep you safe. Let me make you feel good. Let me hurt you._

Hosea stepped forward until he was chest-to-chest with Dutch, their breaths ghosting over each other’s lips. “I want _big bad Dutch van der Linde_ to give me all that he’s got and trust that I can take it,” he growled.

Dutch shoved him, then - a forceful sudden movement that sent him stumbling back out of the creek several feet and into the grass, and Dutch stepped up in front of him again the next second, brushing their noses together. “What do you want?” he asked again, lower.

Hosea placed his fingertips carefully on Dutch’s hip bone. “I want you to try everything you can to break me. Make me prove that I’m unbreakable.”

Dutch shoved him again, sending him careening back six feet before catching his balance again. Dutch was on him again in a heartbeat, leaning in so close their foreheads touched. “What do you want?” he breathed.

Hosea stared into those eyes for a long moment, mashing his forehead against Dutch’s in a vy for dominance that Dutch readily pushed back against, his breathing picking up. “Fuck me,” he ordered.

Dutch shoved him one last time and sent him slamming against the bark of a towering cedar tree, and right as Hosea tried to recover Dutch slammed him back against it, pinning him down by the shoulders and by the press of his hips as he ghosted his lips across his, and the mixture of the dozens of smarting scratches down his back and the feeling of Dutch’s cock hardening against the swelling arc of his own, of the thick sheet of dark hair and soft skin and firm muscle that kept him trapped against the tree, made heat blaze through his veins and his pulse pound in his throat and chest and groin. Dutch’s mouth was on his in their next breath, prying it open with commanding lips and licking into him, stealing his tongue in his own’s embrace as his muscular hands harshly dug into his hips, pulling them harder against his own, both their cocks pinned between their pelvises. Hosea’s thoughts began unspooling like a ball of yarn, tangling into the clashing signals of pain and pleasure from his body as he dragged his nails down Dutch’s back.

After half a minute, Dutch parted their lips and began to mouth at his neck with sharp bites and painful nips, soothing them away with his tongue in the aftermath before scraping his teeth along the skin once more, making him release a whimper that pitched down into a growl, and Hosea reached up to fist his hands into the unruly mop of Dutch’s damp curls and yank on them sharply - he smirked when Dutch let out a sharp note of pleasure, then jolted when Dutch grabbed him by the shoulders and whirled him around, forcing his hands to let go of his hair before shoving him face-first against the tree with a firm hand to the back of his skull, snatching both of his wrists and holding them behind him in a vice grip, pinning him to the tree with his bulk.

His mind fell down the spiral staircase of the biting cold against his damp skin, of the bark scraping along his forehead and chest and stomach, of the feeling of the bones in Dutch’s hands cutting off the circulation to his own, of Dutch’s breath in his ear. He shuddered as he choked down a whimper.

“You’re sure you want this?” Dutch asked, his voice quiet and slightly strained, bearing a raw note of vulnerability. “You want me to be _rough?_ This will help you?”

Hosea swallowed thickly and nodded, pushing himself back against Dutch’s warmth.

“Liefje,” Dutch whispered, “I need to hear you say it.”

Hosea forced himself to blink his eyes open and think through the haze of adrenaline and dopamine spilling through his mind.

He’d had rough fucks with other partners in his distant past. All of them were nauseating memories, full of hazy images of alcohol and opium, partners he couldn’t remember the faces of and didn’t care to - but he remembered the ceilings and the bedspreads and the walls as he sank into a place far away, letting his body ride out the waves of ecstasy while he stared from somewhere outside of it.

Power was not something he easily relinquished since those days. Control over his own body was something that he himself struggled to maintain, ever since alcohol coursed through his veins, making him a prisoner in his own body and his own mind, birthing a spectre that wrapped snaking fingers around his hands and his jaw, carving off a swath of his mind with its claws that always yearned to pick up a bottle at every minute of every day.

Dutch… Well, Dutch was always different. He’d given all his power, all his control to that man countless times before, both by and against his choice. Sometimes, Dutch betrayed that responsibility, letting it break in his care either by negligence or malice.

Most times, however, he felt like the only safer place in the world than Dutch’s arms was six feet underground. Most times, Dutch made him feel like the most powerful man in the West. Most times, Dutch made him feel more beloved than all the money he could possibly hold in his hands.

Most times, it was Dutch trusting all of himself to Hosea’s hands and putting all of his unblinking faith into his devout assertion that Hosea would never drop or break him - that if he were to pray to any power for salvation, it would be Hosea before God.

He felt Dutch slowly curl around him in an embrace, dragging his teeth along his shoulder before ending on an open-mouthed kiss. “Dearest?” he whispered.

Hosea slowly stiffened and stood up straight. He looked over his shoulder, his jaw set. “Every part of my body hurts right now,” he said lowly. “The kind of pain that makes me want to rip my limbs off. There’s an ache that never leaves, just gets quiet for a while. All of it makes me feel like warmed-up shit.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “But when it’s doing something I love… when it’s you… it feels _good.”_ He opened his eyes to level Dutch with a long look. “I’ve seen this help you. I want this to help me.”

Dutch looked him over carefully, then hardened his expression again, a light sparkling in his eyes as he slowly nodded. “You say Utah, and I stop,” he said, his voice deep and clear and stern. 

“As always,” Hosea drawled with an impatient huff, only to stiffen with a full-body spasm when Dutch’s hand cracked across his ass, leaving a sharp sting and a bloom of tingles that went straight to his cock, making him gnash his head further into the tree to shove himself backwards, shivering at the glide of Dutch’s length down the cleft of his ass.

“That’s what I like to see,” Dutch said lowly, his voice deep and honey-sweet. “About time I see you behaving after acting out all day.”

“You think I’m behaving?” Hosea sing-songed, smirking with a huff of breathless laughter. “Oh, I’m just getting st-”

He was cut off by Dutch’s hand sweeping up to wrap around his throat, tightening to pull him back away from the tree and fall back against Dutch’s front. Hosea tried to struggle away, but that simply made both the hand around his wrists and the hand around his throat tighten, cutting off his airflow. His eyes widened and he froze.

"I've had just about enough of your lip today, too," Dutch rumbled, giving his throat one last warning squeeze. "I think I'm due something with a little more respect." He let go, and Hosea coughed briefly to clear his throat.

After he caught his breath, he growled, _"Not happening."_

The next thing he knew, Dutch was hauling him over by his captured wrists towards a large rock, where he sat down and flung Hosea roughly over his knee, knocking the wind out of him as his head dangled above the ground.

"Wanna try that again?" Dutch warned, caressing his free hand in slow circles around Hosea's ass.

Blood rushed to both his cock and his face, coloring his ears as he looked up at Dutch's smug expression. He shuddered and sneered at that apple-pie grin and round cheekbones. "Nope."

Dutch's hand struck him across the ass again, making him spasm and kick his feet out as the sound echoed against the trees.

"Each time you fail to do what I order you to do, it doubles," Dutch drawled, jiggling his knee a little. "Now. Tell me you're mine, _sweetheart_ \- and make sure you address me appropriately."

"I can't believe you're _actually spanki-"_

Dutch spanked him twice, two harsh strikes that echoed through the trees and made Hosea bark out a growled yelp. He gritted his teeth and hissed through them. _"I'm yours,_ shitface."

Four strikes followed and he writhed in Dutch's lap, pushing with his feet to escape only to have Dutch sweep his ankles out from under him with his foot. His cock was fully swollen now, hanging thick and heavy against the inside of Dutch's thigh.

He shivered and hitched a breath, then had an idea. With an innocent smile, he sweetly said, "I'm yours, _nokhshlepper."_

Dutch's hand cracked across his ass eight times, and by the time it finally stopped, Hosea was bonelessly writhing in Dutch's lap, all of his senses atuned to the hot numb tingling of his ass and the painful throbbing in his cock as tears slipped out of the corners of his eyes and a drop of drool dripped down to the ground. He spat.

 _"In English._ Do I need to make you start counting them?" Dutch asked nonchalantly.

He couldn't exactly summon words at first - only heave for breath and continue to writhe. After ten seconds, Dutch let out a disappointed hum and raised his hand again-

"'M-- 'M yours, I'm yours-- S-" _No, not that one. Think. Think._ He blinked, then took a deep breath. "Achilles."

There was a pause. "That's much better," Dutch hummed, and Hosea panted as he felt himself get taken by the tide of bubbling adrenaline and endorphins, wrapped in the safety of Dutch's hold and the rich sound of his voice. Dutch's hand rose again to caress his ass, which only made the buzzing sting worse. 

It was euphoria. 

"Now," Dutch huffed, standing up abruptly and flinging him onto the rock, and Hosea barely caught himself with his newly released hands. "I'm going to go get something to slick you up with. You stay right here, you don't say anything, or else you ain't gonna like what happens."

Hosea gulped in a deep breath and watched Dutch stride away towards their satchels. He glanced down at his own throbbing cock, looked back at Dutch, then made a decision.

He turned around and stepped away from the rock, grabbing his length and stroking it with a shiver as he watched Dutch kneel down next to his satchel and grab his tin of petroleum jelly. When he turned around, his eyes widened in surprise at the sight of Hosea standing brazenly at the edge of the clearing, pleasuring himself without him with a sharp-toothed smirk. Hosea lifted his free hand to blow him a kiss with a wink.

Dutch puffed up like a tom turkey, then stalked towards him with his hand fisted around the jelly tin, a slow and dangerous smile growing on his face the closer he got. "So that's how we're doing this?"

Dropping the tin, Dutch grabbed Hosea and spun him around, snatching his wrists and kneeing his hip to force him onto his knees on the spongy soil and bed of pine needles that made up the forest floor, kneeling behind him and bringing his wrists together behind his back to hold in one hand once more, reaching his other hand around to grab Hosea's cock in a firm grip, making Hosea gasp and buck his hips.

"This what you want?" Dutch purred into his ear, starting to stroke his cock in fast, precise jerks, sending zinging lightning strikes of pleasure to bolt up into his brain. "You like me touching you like this?" Hosea breathlessly nodded and kept trying to buck his hips. "This wonderful cock of yours… god, feel how hard you are for me. Did you feel it, schatje? When you touched yourself? _When you defied me?"_

Hosea desperately wanted to quip a clever comeback, but all his thoughts felt like loose marbles in the back of a wagon on a bumpy road. He pushed himself back against the warmth of Dutch's chest and nodded instead with a choked-off whimper. 

"What if I bring you off like this? Huh?" Dutch breathed, nuzzling his nose against Hosea's cheekbone. "In my lap, just me jerking you off? Would you like that? Spilling yourself over my hand, covering me in white? What if I make you clean up your mess from my hand with that _mouth_ of yours? Hmm?"

A broken noise trickled out of Hosea's throat and he focused on rocking his hips, pushing his ass back against Dutch's cock before rolling his cock forward into his hand. He could feel his pleasure mounting, rolling its way up the hill towards his climax. He nodded, drunk in the chase for release and the sweet fireworks of orgasm - something that eluded him more often than not these days, no matter how hard he and Dutch tried. The thought of being able to definitively _finish_ was intoxicating, and if Dutch wanted to keep going on him afterwards, that was fine by him.

...That thought made a whine tear from his throat as he lolled his head back against Dutch's shoulder, bucking harder into Dutch's brutal pace as he jumped into the sensation, letting himself be swept away entirely until the only thing he could feel was the way Dutch's callouses shot glittering sparks of pleasure through his whole cock, at the yawning ache in his core, at the growing pressure in his balls.

"Are you close, schatje?" Dutch purred, nibbling the shell of his ear. "Do you want to come? You wanna drain ‘em for me?"

Hosea frantically nodded, feeling himself go _right up_ to the precipice. "Please," he whimpered. _"Please."_ His breath hitched and he sharply gasped as his body tensed up for release-

"Too bad." 

Dutch's hand vanished and Hosea was immediately shoved face first into the ground, his cock jumping and twitching before his pleasure slid back down the hill and onto a plateau, making him let out a snarled cry of loss, feeling like he was burning up as the cold night fell.

“On your knees.”

Dutch was up and walking around him, kicking the tin of petroleum jelly to bounce off his thigh before fisting his hand into his hair, dragging his head up until he was sitting up on his knees, Dutch’s thick fat cock curving towards his mouth where he was heaving for breath, open-mouthed. Hosea’s vision swam for a long moment and his eyes struggled to focus as Dutch said, “You’re going to open yourself on your own while I fuck your mouth. Since I know you can handle it.”

His thoughts frantically swam as he floundered in the tingling pain-pleasure that drowned his mind in sweet molasses. Dutch’s hand cupped his jaw and forced it to open wide.

“Best go on and get to work, sweetheart. We’re going till either you’re ready to take me or I finish in your mouth, whichever comes first.”

Dutch swayed his hips closer and Hosea’s thoughts mashed together in a more frantic spiral that held more red flags than normal. “W- Wyo- ‘Yomi-”

Dutch stilled, caressing his thumb slowly across Hosea’s cheek. “What do you need?” he asked, his voice warm and neutral, one foot still in character, one foot out.

Hosea needed a minute to take stock of his body and find the words. “Hands… shoulders… hurt. Can’t… don’t want to reach back for that. Think it’d hurt. In a bad way. Wrists behind my back might be bad from now on. Breathing hard, too. Don’t want anything in my airway.”

Dutch looked him up and down with a dark, hungry gaze that shone in the twilight and reflected the pale light of the moon. “Thank you, schatje,” he rumbled in that deep sweet tone of his again, easing back into character again. “On your back, now.”

Hosea briefly considered acting out again, but their check-in had him feeling so delightfully _present,_ so he simply eased himself back with a relieved sigh and said “Sure thing, Mister van der Linde.”

The corner of Dutch’s mouth quirked up as he knelt between Hosea’s legs, grabbing the tin of petroleum jelly and screwing it open, dragging two of his own fingers through the lubricant before looking up at him and pressing a finger against the tight muscle of Hosea’s entrance, and apparently Dutch was also feeling particularly reverent, because he simply said “Ask me for permission to come if you get close” before slipping a finger inside him and sinking his mouth down around his cock at the same time.

The stretch and sting of Dutch breaching him combined with the _hot wet pressure_ of his mouth around his cock made him slam his head back into the pine needles and mulch with a shout, feeling all his thoughts dissolve again at the dueling sensations as Dutch skipped any pretense of a warmup and went straight to trying to deep-throat him, positioning himself and stretching his jaw around Hosea’s cock before sinking his head down, Hosea’s cockhead gliding down the length of his tongue to push past the back of his mouth and into the soft wet heat of his throat, all while his finger pistoned in and out of him at a determined rhythm, working him open.

 _“Dutch!”_ Hosea cried. “F-Fuck, _dearest!”_ Dutch’s teeth scraped along Hosea’s length as a warning and Hosea yelped “Achilles!”, embracing the man’s ribs tightly with his thighs as his hands scrabbled for purchase on mossy stones.

It wasn’t long before Dutch started laving his tongue around the head of his cock, suckling at the precome at its slit while flicking his finger against his prostate every time he slid his finger in, and Hosea screamed and whited out for a second, his body bucking up to jam his cock against the back of Dutch’s throat, and the man’s mouth and throat spasmed and clenched around his cock before harshly pulling off in a storm of choked coughs and gasps that poured ice down Hosea’s spine to temper the heat coursing through his veins and numbing his mind.

 _“Shit,_ y’okay?!” he wheezed, sitting up and reaching out for him.

Dutch nodded his head and harshly shoved Hosea back down onto his back. “M’fine,” he rasped, his voice a fragile, broken, shot thing that cracked twice in its reedy whisper as tears oozed out the corners of his eyes, and Hosea squeezed him tighter with his legs as his expression pinched in remorseful empathy, but that just made Dutch heave a tired sigh before leaning down to seal his mouth around Hosea’s and forcefully lick into him at the same time he worked a slick second finger into his core. 

Both of Dutch’s fingers angled themselves to jab against the sweet bundle of nerves nested inside him on each sharp thrust, sending violent bolts of pleasure through Hosea’s frame and burning away the tension in his muscles to make him go pliant under Dutch’s bulk, whimpering into Dutch’s mouth as his mind whited out into buzzing static tuned into the soaring symphony of the heat coiling up in his core, yearning for release.

“Du- Ach- Achilles-” Hosea stammered, rolling his body onto Dutch’s fingers and grasping at every inch of the man he could reach, “m’close!”

“That so?” Dutch whispered against his open mouth.

“Please, please, please-”

“Please what?”

Hosea arced his spine and bucked his hips to knock his cock against Dutch’s stomach, only for Dutch to lean back and shift his weight-bearing hand from the ground to Hosea’s hip, pinning them down. Hosea writhed and mewled, raking his nails down Dutch’s side. _“Tell me I can come.”_

Dutch tilted his head at him for a long moment, a mischievous glint in his eyes that made dread sink into Hosea’s gut. “Mm… no.”

_"Please?!"_

Dutch shook his head with a slow-growing smirk as he kept fucking him with his hand. "You're not allowed to finish till after I do."

Hosea gritted his teeth and then slammed his head back into the mulch. "Get inside me then!"

Dutch slipped his fingers out of him and backed away several feet, pushing himself upright to continue retreating, and Hosea seized up in a panic, his breath locking up in his throat as he stared up at Dutch with pleading eyes.

Dutch stopped a little ways off and wiped his fingers clean on a large leaf. He ticced his head towards the towering cedar. "Put your back against that tree," he ordered, his voice still rough.

Hosea was moving before he could properly form thoughts, flattening himself against the tree and looking at Dutch with wide eyes.

Dutch looked him over for a long moment - the bruises and scrapes and scars accumulated by their harrowing adventure, the gauze wrapped around the worst of the gashes, the hard toned ridges of his muscles that still made up his body as proof of two lifetimes of labor, the lack of fat shielding his ribs serving as proof of how hard it was, of the red and swollen arc of his weeping cock, precome dripping into the soil below. With slow, careful steps, Dutch approached Hosea, his chest heaving, his pupils blown, before he crowded Hosea against the bark, grabbed his chin to tilt his head up, and kissed him long and deep and sweet.

“You’re beautiful,” Dutch murmured after leaning away from their kiss only to dive back in again, “and sacred,” he breathed against his mouth before molding their mouths in a slow drag, finishing with a whisper of “and the one thing in this world I can’t live without.” He slowly grabbed under Hosea’s knee and lifted it to hook over his hipbone. “And I’m going to fuck you against this tree,” he growled, hoisting Hosea up off the ground, and Hosea immediately wrapped his legs around Dutch’s waist and his arms around his shoulders, following the cues so Dutch could pin his weight against the tree without putting too much strain on his shoulders or spine, wrapping firm supportive hands under his ass, “and watch how well you can take me, like you can take anything this world throws at you. Tell me, schatje, do you trust me?”

Hosea leaned forward to nuzzle his nose under Dutch’s jaw. “With all that I am.”

“Do you have faith in me?”

Hosea looked into Dutch’s eyes. “Always.”

Dutch caught their lips in a slow, languid kiss before pressing their foreheads together and rumbling, “Then show me your strength, Patroclus.”

Hosea nipped his chin. “Do your worst, Achilles.”

And with that, Dutch sank his teeth into Hosea’s neck and hefted Hosea up before lowering him and thrusting up into him, making Hosea gasp at the hot ripple of _painpleasureplainpleasure_ as his body yielded to Dutch’s cock in a tight slick slide and stretch, parting against its slow controlled push and forming to it until Dutch was bottomed out and languidly grinding his hips against his ass, furiously sucking a hickey into the side of his neck, and Hosea’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as the flood of sensation and feeling of _fullness,_ of completeness, made the edges of his awareness white out, all his thoughts reduced to a buzzing roar.

“…-uck me,” he heard himself babbling, voice high and breathy and broken, “fuck me, fuck me, fuck me please fuck me-“

Dutch held him firmly and rolled his hips back to slide his cock completely out, then rammed it back in with a fresh blooming sting and explosion of endorphins, and Hosea let himself drown in the ocean of _safety_ and _ecstasy_ and _love,_ sinking down into deep dark waters, any fear or hatred towards himself or his own body remaining far above the surface.

Dutch wasted no time setting a brutal pace, fucking up into him with quick snaps of his hips that filled the clearing with the sound of skin against skin, and Hosea could only gasp and pant and mewl and whimper and shout, clawing at Dutch’s shoulders and the back of his neck to hold himself up as he slammed his head back against the tree, arching his spine so that Dutch could thrust deeper still. Dutch gave him a particularly violent thrust that zinged through his core like a lightning bolt as he started roaming his hot, wet mouth all across his throat to the other side of his neck, and Hosea let out a long cry before slamming his head back against the tree again.

Dutch glanced up at him, a wild dark flare in his eyes as his brow furrowed upwards ever so slightly, and then all at once, with a deep rumbling snarl that reverberated through Dutch’s entire torso, Dutch tucked his chin over Hosea’s shoulder and hitched him further up onto him, leaning back slightly and backing away from the tree, still fucking up into him as Hosea’s weight settled fully into Dutch’s arms, bouncing him up and down on his cock under their own power, his washboard abs harshly straining with effort where they rolled against his stomach. Hosea’s eyes flared wide and he flexed his arms to hold himself more securely around Dutch’s shoulders, leaning his head back to gaze into the slightly pained face of the man he loved and crash their mouths together, constricting all of his limbs around Dutch in a fierce embrace to hold his weight balanced around the man’s center. He opened his mouth to accept Dutch’s tongue and mewled at the clumsy motions of the man as he desperately kissed him, panting heavily through his nose and brokenly moaning when Hosea suckled at his tongue and caressed his hand through his mess of curls.

Dutch managed to keep it up for a solid thirty seconds before his arms started quivering, and pushed it for another ten before his entire body started trembling with pain and weakness. He broke their kiss and frantically kissed along Hosea’s jaw, thrusting into him three more times before pulling out of him and setting him down, grabbing at his arms and steadying himself before wrapping an iron-gripped hand around the nape of Hosea’s neck and commanding, “Hands and knees.”

Hosea obediently sank down to the ground and leaned forward onto his hands, ducking his head and presenting his ass so Dutch could get back to work, and he saw Dutch kneel down on shaking legs behind him before he saw the man stiffen with a sharp gasp.

He quickly looked behind him and immediately frowned when he saw Dutch turn white as a sheet, his eyes widening as they focused on Hosea’s groin. Hosea jerked his head to look at it so quick some part of his mind must’ve thought it’d fallen off.

He supposed that, in a way, it did – considering it was as soft as it could be, shrunken and tucked away shyly.

“Why didn’ you say you were near Utah?” Dutch babbled immediately, reaching out a hand to splay protectively over the small of his back. “Did I hurt you?!”

“I am in _fucking Russia,”_ Hosea spat, curling his hands into fists as he gritted his teeth against frustrated tears, a violent arc of anger whipping out through his limbs at the thought that finishing was no longer on the table for him. “My cock is just _a bastard_ like always. Please, b’shert, I just want you to _keep going.”_

Dutch instantly grabbed him by the nape of his neck and shoved his head down against the ground, nudging his knees wider apart with his own. “You just want me to fuck you, liefje? Is that it?”

Hosea screwed his eyes shut. “Make me feel like I’m not broken.”

The sharp and violent _crack!_ across his ass was sudden and unexpected, and Hosea let out a yelp before Dutch grabbed his hip and harshly thrust into him the next second, making the dark thoughts that snuck in white out again as _painpleasure_ exploded through his veins.

“’Cause you _ain’t,”_ Dutch growled, shifting his hands to grab Hosea’s wrists and pin them to the ground as he started pounding into him at the pace of a steady heartbeat, making his knees skid slightly through the soil – and his cock may have gone soft, but the heat trapped in his core was louder and sweeter than ever. “You know your body best, dearest, but you also give up on it far too easily. Just _look at you_ now. Taking my cock better than scores of men and women at the peaks of their lives. You think some young blonde in their 20s would’ve lasted as long as you? Could be capable of what you’re capable of? Could hold a single candle to what your worth is to me?”

Hosea didn’t know if it was luck or observation, but Dutch was digging his thumb into a doubt that Hosea had been trying his best to hide from him.

“I may _look…_ because I am an admirer of all things beautiful,” Dutch added, shifting a hand to firmly grab Hosea by the shoulder and pull his body back onto each thrust, making Hosea almost sob. “But your beauty runs deeper than the surface, my love. I get- _drunk-_ on the stories your body carries. The _power_ you have to have made it this far... And there ain’t a damn person- in existence who I- desire more than you. With that…” Dutch bent low over him, thrusting even deeper with harsh snaps of his hips that had Hosea gasping for breath at each one, “handsome face of yours- and your silver tongue- and your _tight- little-_ body.” He let out a low growl and mashed his forehead into the nape of Hosea’s neck as Hosea shook and trembled like a leaf. _“Shit,_ I’m close.”

Dutch’s rhythm slowly began dissolving, but Hosea knew his lover well enough to tell that the grunts of pleasure in his ear were tinged with exhaustion and pain. The way Dutch’s muscles were trembling told him the man probably needed a little help.

“I-I want it,” Hosea ground out, gulping for air and shivering as he clenched his walls around Dutch’s cock, and Dutch gasped before nipping his shoulder blade and rutting into him harder. “I want you. Come inside m-me, Achilles, _come on!_ Pump me full, _c-claim me,_ or are you not man enou-?!“

With a broken noise, Dutch collapsed across his back and wrapped his arms around his torso in a vice grip, his cock twitching and spasming before shooting his seed inside him, filling him with the euphoric sensation of white-hot pulses blooming in his center, and Hosea locked his elbows to support his partner’s weight as Dutch kept harshly rutting into him even as he came, thrusting his spasming cock in and out of him all through the length of his orgasm and after, finally stilling with a trembling shudder as his cock softened inside him, gasping for breath against Hosea’s back where hot droplets dripped onto his skin where Dutch’s eyes were cradled in the slope between his shoulder blades.

Hosea’s mind slipped back into the roaring ocean of thrumming pleasure, all other things left carefully blank.

Until Dutch pulled out of him.

An explosion of _nowaitstop_ burst from that blessed ocean and Hosea let out a strained whimper until Dutch breathed, “Shhhh... Shhhh… Let me take care of you…”, sliding a hand down to cup his soft cock before lowering him down to the ground, lifting his other hand to scoop up some of his seed that began to leak out and push it back inside, making Hosea gasp and spread his legs wider as he mashed his forehead into the soil.

Then Dutch slipped his cock between his fingers and began rolling it between his knuckles as his fingers found the nub of his prostate and began steadily circling it.

Hosea convulsed and shrieked and whimpered and cried out, torn between trying to flinch away from the two bolts of pleasure he was trapped between and prostrating himself to feel it even more completely. He settled on the latter with a ragged gasp, feeling his pleasure rapidly soar back towards that elusive climax.

“That’s it,” Dutch purred, “that’s it, schatje. This making you feel good?” Hosea let out a half-scream and nodded, grabbing fistfuls of old pine needles and scraping his nails through the Earth. “God, look at you… Think you can come for me, Patroclus? Can you finish for your Achilles?” He was _so close._ He could _feel it_ \- he might not ejaculate, but the feeling of pre-orgasm was all the same, his muscles winding up like tight cinches in preparation as everything slowly began whiting out. “So beautiful… so beautiful like this. So wet and loose for me. Whether you can finish for me or not, sweetheart… the sight’s a treat itself. Just watching you so undone…”

“C- Clo- _Ahh!”_ Hosea shrieked, feeling a tremor wrack his body. 

“You’re close?!” Dutch asked, picking up the pace, and Hosea let out a sob. “Well then if you think you can, darlin’... _go right on ahead._ You gonna come from me rubbin’ your clit? From my fingers in your cunt? Huh? _Come for me,_ sweetheart. That’s an order. _Come for me!”_

His heart skipped a beat as Dutch pulsed his hand around his cock and _kept circling_ those nerves and after only a few seconds, with Dutch’s words still rattling around his skull, he opened his mouth wide in a silent scream mixed with broken gasps as ecstasy ripped through his body like a series of turbulent waves, his balls contracting in a dry orgasm as the rest of it rippled through every other part of him until everything snapped to blinding white and then pitch black like a blown bulb.

When his awareness finally began trickling back in, all of his sensations swam in a kind of… blurry soup, stumbling and smearing over each other, drunk from the highest high he’d had in years. Dutch was a line of scorching heat at his front - he’d somehow been maneuvered to lay draped on top of the man, who was clutching at him with both his arms and legs as he hid his face in Hosea’s neck, his entire frame violently shivering. Hosea weakly dragged a hand up to clumsily fumble at the back of the man’s neck to cradle him close, and the gesture made Dutch clutch at him tighter, caressing large warm hands down his arms and back and scalp, pressing chaste kisses to the chords of his neck before he nuzzled his face further against Hosea’s head, pressing it securely into the hot cradle of Dutch’s throat, his pulse thundering in a soothing beat against his eyelids.

“Hi,” he breathed weakly, feeling a headache settle into his temples as his body twitched and spasmed uncontrollably in little leftover shocks of strain.

“Hi,” Dutch breathed back, letting his head fall to the ground with a heavy _thud_ and a pained, choked sound.

“How ya doin’?” Hosea whispered. He experimentally tried to move his leg only for it to not respond, his muscles spasming instead.

“I’m…” Dutch let out a breathless, slightly manic laugh. “I’m _hurtin’_ , I ain’t gonna lie.” His breath hitched. “Mighta been different if you asked me for this when I was twenty ‘steada forty-four.”

Hosea curled into him with another spasm. “I wouldn’t’ve had a…” he took a moment to catch his breath. “...had a good time back then.”

Dutch shuddered and lifted his nose to bury it in his hair, slowly massaging his shoulders and the nape of his neck. “An’ now?”

Hosea let out a quiet, tinkling laugh. “You made me feel _so good,_ zeeskeit. Thank you.”

Dutch hummed, a low note that was almost a purr. “I’m glad.”

“Did _you_ enjoy it?” Hosea asked quietly.

Dutch let his head fall back to the Earth and started idly playing with his hair. “...It’s not my favorite,” he confessed gingerly. “But it ain’t _bad._ I loved that look in your eye… Like you were _wild._ An’ I like taking care of you.” He swallowed. “Maybe I could do this as a… once a year thing? Like for your birthday?”

Hosea giggled. “We always do the most wild bullshit for each other’s birthdays.”

Dutch started giggling too. “A beloved tradition.”

Hosea planted a kiss to Dutch’s throat. _“Thank you,_ dearest, really. I just…” He sighed and curled further into Dutch’s hold. “Hate feeling weak.”

Dutch sombered quickly and went from playing with his hair to massaging his scalp, making Hosea let out a deep, pleased hum. “I’m sorry for making you feel that way,” he murmured.

“You know what else I’m feeling?” Hosea prompted, nuzzling his nose into Dutch’s neck.

“Hmm?”

“Dis- _gusting.”_

Dutch barked out a laugh and embraced him, then groaned. “Ugh, yeah, I ain’t feelin’ that well neither.”

With a shudder, Hosea weakly pushed himself up to look down at his partner and at himself, wheezing a laugh at the state they put themselves in. “Christ, look at us. All muddy and bloody and sweaty like a pair of animals.” And Dutch’s spend drying and cooling around his entrance and down his inner thighs was losing its romance.

“Pretty sure I reopened something,” Dutch grunted, high and strained, reaching down at a piece of gauze that had a dark spot bloomed in its center.

“It’s goddamn night, too,” Hosea drawled, shaking his head faster and faster at how foolish they were. It was a miracle the spring night chill wasn’t too bad. He shivered anyways. “Ain’t got the horses, ain’t got the _tent-”_

Dutch cradled his jaw and interrupted him with a warm kiss that he instantly sighed into, closing his eyes and relaxing as Dutch rubbed his leg up and down the back of his in a gentle whisper. “Shhhhhh,” Dutch breathed when they parted, nuzzling his nose against his brow. “I’ll take care of us both. Don’t you worry. And not ‘cause I think you ain’t capable - it’s ‘cause I just spent… Lord knows how long smacking you around and fucking you into the ground.”

Hosea wheezed another laugh. “Can you even stand?” 

“Only one way to find out.” Dutch caressed a slow hand through his hair, then gently eased Hosea off of him and onto the ground. He attempted to to push himself upright with a loud, pained growl of effort, only to have his legs shake out from under him like a newborn foal, sending him crashing back to the ground as Hosea laughed at him. _“Ow.”_

“Was I too much for ya, cowboy?” Hosea called over to him, crawling closer to slap him on the stomach.

“You’re always too much for me,” Dutch whined. 

Both men then slowly looked towards the creek roughly forty feet away.

“...Oh no,” Hosea said. “...There’s no way in Hell I can stand up or walk after all that.”

Dutch turned his head to look at him, slowly shaking it. “...We’re gonna have to crawl.”

“Oh _no.”_

“I’m crawlin’!” Dutch announced, dragging himself towards the creek as laughter started rolling out of his chest. Hosea wasn’t far behind him.

“It’s gonna be _cold!”_ he whined, his own laughter bubbling up out of his belly and through his nose. “God, we didn’t think this through!”

“I’ll make a fire near the bank!”

“That’s your solution?!”

“I wanna be _clean_ goddammit! And how do you build a lean-to? We’ll probably need one of those-”

“Where’s the petroleum jelly?”

“What?”

“Where’s the jelly tin?”

“Oh there ain’t no way in hell I’m lookin’ for that thing, it’s gone.”

“We really gonna change out all our bandages because of this romp, huh. A waste.”

“Listenin’ to ya squeal on my cock is never a waste.”

“I did NOT. _Squeal-”_

“Still think I’m impotent, darlin’?”

“...No.”

Dutch snorted as he started dragging sticks and twigs and dry needles into a cone on the creekbank as Hosea rolled into the water. They continued laughing as Dutch lit a match and set the assortment on fire, then scooted himself into the water beside him, dragging their satchels closer.

“We are ridiculous,” Hosea deadpanned, looking Dutch up and down with a warm smirk.

“Utterly,” Dutch answered, guiding Hosea into his lap as the warm golden glow built up to embrace them in the dark, bathing them in humble warmth as Dutch began the patient work of cleaning them both with his ruined shirt.

Roughly two hours later, with food and lots of water in their bellies where they laid in a fumbled-together lean-to in front of a healthy, roaring fire, wrapped in each other’s arms and huddled under Hosea’s coat as a blanket, shirtless and in fresh bandages as their pants-covered legs tangled together with their boots keeping their feet warm, Hosea was almost asleep in Dutch’s embrace when the man quietly ventured, “I’m thinkin’ about movin’ camp further East, towards the larger towns. More folk to rob that a way, including businessmen causing trouble for the reservations… been thinkin’ maybe you could cause _them_ a touch of trouble.”

Hosea peeked an eye open and smiled. “Just a touch?”

The corners of Dutch’s eyes crinkled in the firelight. “You’re gonna _ruin ‘em,_ darlin’.” Hosea chuckled and nestled further into Dutch’s chest. “Think we could also do with you goin’ out huntin’ and fishin’ for us again. Poor Arthur can’t be the only one feeding our sorry hides.”

“A task I shall _gladly_ put my back into,” Hosea murmured.

Dutch’s fingers were warm where they caressed the stubble at the back of his jaw, missed by his razor. “I was also thinkin’...” he said quietly, his voice soft and hesitant. “...I miss you taking care of me.”

Hosea opened both of his eyes for that, pushing himself up until he was fully laying on Dutch’s chest, looking down into the open, vulnerable face of his soulmate, his eyes like dark glittering pools of water in the firelight. “How about that,” he answered, just as quiet, but his voice was deep and sure and warm. “I miss being the one who’s able to take care of you.” He leaned down, then, and pressed a long, soft kiss to the center of Dutch’s forehead. “We’re supposed to be _partners,_ shefele. Equals. Giving as much as we take. I don’t like being left out in the cold by you, but I don’t like you _suffocating_ me neither.” He leaned down again and brushed his lips against Dutch’s, requesting entry with a gentle suggestion, and felt a warm note swirl around his heart when Dutch parted his mouth - the forming of their lips together was a beautiful, familiar thing, and Dutch accepted him gladly as Hosea’s tongue dipped into Dutch’s ready embrace. They kissed for a long moment before Hosea finally pulled back, taking a deep breath with a smile at Dutch’s eyes watching him with rapt, soft attention. “This is beautiful country,” he said slowly, turning his head to look out at the Montanan night and settling down onto Dutch’s chest again. “This is a fine place to settle down. You’re doing good here, and I mean it.” He slowly closed his eyes and took a deep breath - imagining being able to fall asleep every night in a warm ranch house bed, with Dutch at his side. “I could die in peace here.”

Dutch’s chest stopped moving for a long moment. Then, it slowly expanded on a long inhale.

“A fine place to die,” he breathed, his voice sounding far away.

Hosea fell asleep.


End file.
